Connie Johnson Hambley is the author of tense, twisting thrillers with a strong moral code. She visited with me earlier this week on The Writer’s Voice podcast to discuss writing and the community of writers.
Connie currently serves as the president ofSisters in Crime New England and two her award-winning books, which are part of The Jessica Trilogy, won the Best English Fiction literary award at the EQUUS International Film Festival in NYC.
You can listen to Connie’s appearance on my podcasthere, or watch the YouTube video of that conversationhere.
You can ask 10 different people what “success” is and you’ll get 10 different answers. However, most people agree about how you arrive at success, the destination, regardless of what your definition of the term is.
In my 40+ years working in the insurance industry, I’ve made my share of mistakes and learned my share of lessons. I’ve been mentored by some wonderful people and watch a boatload of people succeed. I’ve seen people fail to achieve their desired outcomes, as well.
Eleven years ago, I made a list of what I believed to be the required elements of success. That list included:
Attitude
Research
Resources
Essential knowledge, based on your goal(s)
Relationship
Organization
Time management
Money
Paying attention to other people
Some people will tell you luck plays a role in success. And maybe they’re right. But I tend to believe my father’s take on that perspective:
Why is it that successful people seem to have a lot of good luck? Successful people make their own luck by putting themselves in so many good situations good luck seems to follow them. Ergo: the harder you work, the luckier you are.
Donald F. McHenry
I believe a person’s mental attitude and relationships are the two most important elements of success. But I have an opinion about all 9 of those elements.
The nature of your job, occupation, or profession doesn’t matter. Your tenure at what you do doesn’t matter either–whether you’re a newbie or an expert. What matters is that you can take these 9 components of success and apply them to your job, occupation, profession, or task and accomplish your goals.
Launching a marketing campaign? They apply to you. Starting a new business. Ditto. The same holds true if you just want a fresh perspective on what you’ve known all along.
In light of shelter in place orders, those of us who have published books in the past couple of months have found it difficult to share the word about our new releases. Even without social distancing, marketing ourselves can be difficult.
I just launched The Writer’s Voice podcast, which is a forum to discuss their craft … and their books. In most cases, I will also post YouTube videos of each guest. I’m currently in the process of interviewing and recording my first five guests and plan to air the first episode on Wednesday, May 27th.
If you are interested in being a guest on the podcast, visit my website’s Podcast page and complete the request form.
Feel free to share this post with any writers you know!
People, and how you get along with them, define your professional reputation. Do people like you? Do they trust you? Do they want to refer you to their families and friends? In Chapter Five of Taking the Mystery out of Business, Linda McHenry explains in detail how your sincerity, generosity, and understanding of people create the basis for all your business relationships and demonstrate your degree of professional success.
Thanks to all of you who submitted votes for your preferred version of the new book cover for Taking the Mystery out of Business. I received lots of input, and truly appreciate it.
As you can see, the blue cover was the favorite, followed by the green cover.
Stay tuned for the book’s release date. April is coming soon…
Cover by Shawn Jewett. Feel free to reach out to me if you’re interested in him doing any artwork for you!
